holding that state statutes which permitted Medicaid providers to place liens and recover on claims against third parties who caused the Medicaid covered injuries were preempted to the extent the statutes permitted recovery beyond the Medicaid payment
How later courts described this case
- holding that state statutes which permitted Medicaid providers to place liens and recover on claims against third parties who caused the Medicaid covered injuries were preempted to the extent the statutes permitted recovery beyond the Medicaid payment
- invalidating a state stat-ule which authorized a provider to recover its customary fee through a lien against a judgment or settlement obtained by a Medicaid beneficiary against a third-party tortfeasor
- invalidating a state statute which authorized a provider to recover its customary fee through a lien against a judgment or settlement obtained by a Medicaid beneficiary against a third-party tortfeasor
- Medicaid statutes and regulations "are unambiguous and limit provider collections from a Medicaid beneficiary to, at most, the cost-sharing charges allowed under the state plan, even when a third party tortfeasor is later found liable for the injuries suffered by that beneficiary"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
GEORGE, C. J., Concurring.
I have signed the majority opinion, but I have done so on the understanding that the opinion does not create the overbroad “safe harbor” to which Justice Werdegar’s concurring opinion properly objects. I agree with Justice Werdegar that a business whose ongoing practices are found unlawful or unfair could not complain, on fairness grounds, “of being enjoined from further such violations” in the future, even if the business’s past conduct was based on what seemed to be an enforceable state law. (Cone. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 833.) And I also agree that a grant of monetary relief “is not necessarily unfair merely because the defendant business believed in good faith that its practice was lawful.” (Ibid.) In my view, the majority opinion need not, and should not, be read as inconsistent with these propositions.